The best short stories of 1918, and the yearbook of the American short story — Inside the Classic

Voice and the Unreliable First Impression

The excerpted story builds its effect through a carefully calibrated narrative voice. The narrator describes the stranger with a blend of condescension and curiosity: “My first impression of the man, of the familiarity of his type, had, I suppose, been so strong as to dull for a moment my reaction to this discovery.” The language is deliberate, almost clinical, until the revelation of the decoration bar. Then the tone loosens: “For sheer incongruous association, I doubt if you’d find a more pat example in a lifetime.” The narrator’s self-awareness—admitting his own slow reaction—adds a layer of psychological realism. When the man later reveals he is from Dubuque, Iowa, the voice shifts again, now warm and specific: “a perfectly complete picture of that street—broad and shady and quiet.” This movement from ironic distance to affectionate detail suggests a narrator learning to see beyond stereotypes.

Pacing Through Dialogue and Revelation

The excerpt demonstrates how pacing is controlled through staggered revelations. The initial description of the stranger is leisurely, building a false sense of certainty. The discovery of the ribbons is a sharp jolt: “my eye was caught by a thin, brilliantly colored line.” The narrator’s internal processing—the slow connection between the bar and its meaning—extends the moment of suspense. Dialogue then accelerates the pace. The man’s deadpan reply, “Bought ’em, at the Galleries Lafayette,” lands as a punchline, undercutting the narrator’s assumptions. The subsequent conversation about his work in Serbia, delivered “quite by the way,” introduces a new, sobering layer. This alternation between reflective narration and terse, revealing dialogue creates a rhythm of expectation and surprise that characterizes the story’s structure.

Setting as a Mirror of Character

The Paris hotel setting serves as a stage for cultural and social contrasts. The narrator and his companion are positioned as observers, their judgments shaped by the cosmopolitan environment. The stranger’s casual mention of Dubuque—a specific, unglamorous American town—disrupts the European backdrop. The narrator’s mental adjustment (“I adjusted myself to that, still with the Dubuque setting, however”) highlights how setting informs character perception. The story uses physical details—the yellow frame house, the green lawn—to ground the man’s identity in a particular American landscape. This technique recurs in the collection: settings are not mere backdrops but active elements that challenge or confirm characters’ identities. The contrast between the hotel’s formality and the man’s Midwestern ease creates a tension that drives the narrative forward.

Readers approaching this anthology should attend to how O'Brien's editorial choices—the inclusion of a yearbook, the careful acknowledgments—frame the stories as both art and document. The excerpted story rewards attention to its narrative voice, which moves from ironic detachment to genuine warmth, and its pacing, which uses staggered revelations to keep the reader off balance. The collection invites comparison between stories, revealing how different authors manipulate similar techniques of voice and setting.

I remember reading O’Brien’s anthology on a grey train platform, the soldier’s casually bought medals making me wonder what else we carry that isn’t earned. That quiet unraveling—what stories we tell about our own pasts—came back when I found The other half — Reading Companion. It moved like that too, a soft insistence that our roles are negotiated, not given.